Entropy
Updated Aug 1, 2026
In digital security, entropy is randomness collected by an operating system or another system and used for cryptographic operations such as generating encryption keys. The strength of cryptography depends on the unpredictability of the numbers used in processes like key generation, so higher entropy means higher randomness and a harder target for an attacker trying to predict or reproduce a key.
Key facts
Entropy is the raw randomness that feeds cryptographic key generation. In crypto specifically, it underpins the creation of private keys and wallet seeds.
Entropy can be harvested from unpredictable physical or system processes, such as mouse movements, keyboard timing, or system interrupts. Software systems collect entropy this way because computers are otherwise deterministic environments, and deterministic systems cannot produce true randomness on their own.
Low entropy is a direct security risk. If a system fails to gather enough randomness, generated keys become predictable and can potentially be reproduced by an attacker.
Entropy is the starting input for seed phrase creation. When a new wallet is created, the software generates a large random number, its entropy, which is then converted into a sequence of words from the BIP39 word list to produce the phrase.
Hardware wallets address the entropy problem by generating keys inside a dedicated secure chip rather than relying on a general-purpose device's entropy pool. Tangem's private key is generated by a true random number generator (TRNG) on a secure element, and by default the wallet stores keys directly on the chip with no seed phrase required, though BIP39 support is available optionally.
